The market stats are in. We know where our buyers are coming from.

Guess what?

Nearly 50% of people purchasing property in Kelowna aren't from Kelowna.

The Okanagan Mainland Real Estate Board posted their standings from their recent buyers survey for July. The results are below:

50.3% from Within Okanagan Mainland Real Estate Board(down from 57.9% in July)
22.7% from Alberta (up from 18.2%) ***
11.7% from Other Areas in BC  (up from 8.6%) ***
7.3% from Lower Mainland/Vancouver Island  (down from 9.8%)
3.6% from Saskatchewan/Manitoba (up from 1.2%) ***
2.3% from Outside Canada  (up from 1.8%) ***
1.3% from Eastern Canada/Maritimes (down from 2.1%)
0.7% from NWT/Yukon (up from 0.3%) ***

I know I wont be the only realtor posting these results. So rather than just post, lets discuss.

You have your home listed, or are thinking about listing it.....

How can you make your property more favorable to out of town buyers?

Here are 2 of my recommendations:

Always have your home show ready and make sure it is quickly available to view!

When people are here from out of town, they don't have all the time in the world to wait to see your home. I'm sure they understand that you, just like them, went away for the weekend. Or, you worked late and couldn't get the property ready until the next afternoon.

A short notice showing request is never ideal, but we have to be ready to accommodate.

Their desire to purchase might have been on a whim. They might have gone on a wine tour and driven by your home. They might have discussed over lunch to purchase in the area and took the time afterward to walk into a local Coldwell Banker office and ask a certain Realtor (me) to go see a property that interested them that same day (happens more often than you would think).

So you got everything ready for Sunday afternoon, time to sell your home! Right?

Wrong - These buyers drove back home at 1pm. But, before they did, they wrote an offer on your neighbors home that was listed. They saw it Saturday night and loved the view...THE SAME VIEW THAT YOU HAD!

I'm not saying they would have made an offer on your home, but I'm not saying they wouldn't have either.

Take Professional Photos!

Many buyers do the initial searching on their own. Even if they have a Realtor, they will still go on to Realtor.ca and look at listing, after listing, after listing. I have had many occasions where a client has asked for me to find them a certain type of property(let's say concrete highrise) than suggested after the fact to check out something entirely different that they found online (let's say wood frame low-rise).

What was their motivator - PHOTOS! - The photos convinced them to check out a property that they convinced themselves earlier they weren't interested in. - this particular client bought the low-rise wood frame condo by the way.

To summarize, its exciting to see so many out of towners interested in Kelowna! If you are selling, do your best to make it easy for these people to choose your property first.

If you have any other tips or tricks and can provide some feedback on how to make your home appeal to these out of town buyers, I would love to hear it.

Lets get inside the mind of a first time home buyer with this question:

Should you fix-up your Home Before you Sell?

As a home seller, you may be thinking that a ‘fixer-upper’ property would appeal to most first time buyers trying to put their first step on the property ladder. 

With all the shows on the Home and Garden Network you would think that that's the ONLY thing people are looking for.

Why not? you have opportunity to create equity with some elbow grease.

However, according to the results of a recent Coldwell Banker survey on the preferences of first-time buyers, you’d better think again!

Coldwell Banker recently conducted a survey of real estate brokers and sales professionals across Canada and the U.S. to determine the preferences of first time buyers.  The survey findings clearly show that First Time Buyers want a ‘turn key’ property where they can simply move in and start to enjoy living in their new home.  

You might ask Why these buyers aren't generally looking for a fixer upper?

These individuals have typically put the majority of their financial power into the down payment.  They don’t have large reserves of cash available to start putting more money back into the property on major upgrades and renovations.  

In addition, first time buyers are typically just starting out in their career and --especially in the case of single buyers -- have little free time available for house repairs.  Bottom line?  The less there is to do on your property in the way of repairs or updates, the more appealing it’s going to be to those buyers.  In most cases, it’s well worth the investment to do the necessary repairs before putting your home on the market.  

Do you think you should fix up your property before selling it?

To View this Article In its entirety Check out my more Interactive Blogging Page at www.gettokelowna.com/news-blog/

David Delorme - Coldwell Banker Horizon Realty